HIGH SCHOOL DAZE

I transferred to Westlake High School 6 weeks into the 7th grade. I believed I had died and gone to heaven. There was no dress code! The school I transferred from was another story.
Girls dresses were regularly measured to make sure they were no more than 4 inches above the knee, boys caps were removed and their hair better not fall below the eyebrows. I remember a principal in 5th grade showing me an old school picture where all the boys had crew cuts while he explained that I should look like this and not like a little girl, then he sent me home until I got a haircut. My parents were furious. I got a haircut, one that met exactly the code requirements and returned to school. The principal just glared at me.
Del Valle ISD sucked.
I was amazed at the amount of longhaired boys wandering around dressed in whatever the hell they wanted...I couldn't wait for my hair to grow. I was also amazed by the lack of color at my new school...no black kids at all, very few hispanic and one asian. From 7th through 12th grade 3 black kids went to westlake. Del Valle was 85% minority. It was culture shock.
Class lines were drawn differently- you had your rich kids, jocks, rednecks/goatropers, nerds and us, the hair farming potheads.
Because of it's progressive attitude, the school was more like a college campus in terms of it's approach and cirriculum. It was also full of girls, cute hippy chick type girls.
My major was girls with a minor in weed appreciation.
There was one girl in particular I kept ending up with off and on throughout my time there. We were always friends between being a couple and I'd have to say she was my first true love. I ran into her in the late 80's, she walked into a room I was in using the phone and recognized my voice...great big hugs all around, she was genuinely happy to see me as I was her. I never saw her again after that and often wonder where and how she is.
I've written here before about events from those days and will leave it with these 2 events:
The great almost gang fight between the rednecks and the freaks. We would meet on the practice field after school, tensions were high all day. The final bell rang and we headed out to fight. We were met by the entire coaching staff and some male teachers, wielding bats and megaphones between us and the despised rednecks. They ran us off the field before a punch was thrown. I don't know about anyone else, but I was glad it happened that way.
I had this bad ass dress trenchcoat that came all the way down to my ankles. One night at a football game I was between the back wall of the library and a portable building with a girl (not the above mentioned girl) who was giving me a BJ. :)! I heard foot steps coming and covered her with said trench coat. It was the principal! Who demanded to know what I was doing. I said something lame like "just having a smoke" or some such bullshit and he told me to get back to the game right now. I thought at the time I had pulled off the great save. But considering he walked off before I did, I now think he knew there was a girl on her knees inside my trenchcoat and just didn't want to deal with that kind of reality. Thank you Mr. Baressi.